


By Firelight

by butterflymind



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 23:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18353519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflymind/pseuds/butterflymind
Summary: Grizzop practises his moral righteousness, and Wilde practises his sleeping positions.





	By Firelight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flammenkobold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flammenkobold/gifts).



“Once upon a time in a land far far away, there lived a Goblin who wanted nothing more than to be morally righteous at every single moment of his...”

“Shut up.” Grizzop drove the arrow he was sharpening into the ground to make his point. This of course ruined the arrow, but it also felt a little too satisfying for him to be completely sorry.

“Just doing my job.” Wilde replied, leaning back on his pack and staring up the stars. There were fewer trees to block out the sky here, they had hiked through the forest, but now they were further up the mountain the trees had thinned and the few that were left clung uncertainly to the rocks instead of reaching majestically upwards. Secretly, Grizzop pitied them a little.

“Your job, as we have discussed many times before, is done much better when you have slept.” Grizzop reached for his whetstone and another arrow. “And mine is much easier if you are sleeping.”

“But then who would keep you company on watch?” Wilde twisted round to face Grizzop, still using his pack as a pillow. ‘His clothes must be getting filthy’ Grizzop thought, but then realised that under normal circumstances Wilde wouldn’t have to worry about that. “You would get awfully bored.”

“I wouldn’t get bored, because I’m on watch. And the whole point of being on watch, is to watch.”

“But nothing’s happening.” There was a faint clanking from the anti-magic shackles as Wilde moved closer. He had finally removed them from his leg and put them back on his wrist earlier in the day, when they caught repeatedly on the undergrowth during the hike and Grizzop pointed out, four or five times in succession, that pride was about to go quite literally before a fall. Further away, where the others slept, Grizzop heard Sasha turn over and mutter something that sounded like ‘don’t anger the flying daggers.’

“Something might happen. And if it does, I need to see it. Which is the point of watching and not being distracted by you.”

“I’m not distracting.” Wilde’s voice was much closer than before. Looking down, Grizzop saw that he was now lying almost next to his leg, still using his pack as a pillow. He looked from Wilde to the sharpened arrow in his hand and wondered if he had considered how wise that position actually was. “Although I admit I am fascinating.” Grizzop looked at the arrow again but Wilde, who’s danger sense must have been fairly well developed to have survived this long with his basic personality, fell silent. Grizzop let his eyes wander over the treeline further down the mountain, then up towards the peak. Finally he examined the three curled bundles that were his sleeping friends, lit by the moonlight and the soft glow escaping the banked fire. Hamid had rolled slightly towards the others as he always did, seeking warmth and comfort. Sasha twitched fighting imaginary monsters, while Azu slept the sleep of the just, solidly and loudly. As he watched, Hamid’s hand emerged from the cloak he was wrapped in and tightened it more securely around himself. It may have been a trick of the light but Grizzop was certain the hand was more scaly and sharp clawed than he remembered it being the day before.

“Do you think Hamid will turn into a dragon?” Wilde, who had been drowsing next to him, startled awake when Grizzop spoke.

“Certainly seems to be going that way” Wilde replied when he had regained his composure. Grizzop let out an annoyed breath, partly at Wilde’s answer, partly at his own stupidity in waking him when he was almost asleep.

“I mean, will he become a dragon-dragon, or some kind of halflng-dragon-hybrid kind of thing?”

“It’s hard to say with these things.”

“You mean you don’t know.”

“I mean, no one really knows. Should be interesting finding out though.” Grizzop tensed.

“You might think it’s ‘interesting’, but he is one of my friends.”

“And one of my employees.” Wilde returned peaceably. “Might be useful, having a dragon on staff. And a sorcerer-dragon to boot.” His fingers sketched a gesture in the air, a parody of an illusionist’s charm. The shackle on his wrist clanked as he moved.

“What’s it like?” Grizzop asked after a few more moments of silence. When Wilde didn’t answer he reached out and shook the shackle chain. “This.”

“It’s like… being blind. It’s like having your hands buried in the earth.” Wilde sighed and moved suddenly, leaning up off his pack and dropping his head into Grizzop’s lap. “It’s unpleasant. But considering the alternative it’s an absolute picnic.”

“Oi!” Grizzop pushed at Wilde’s shoulders, but to little effect. “Get off!” He held the arrow up threateningly, but Wilde just stared back at it, unperturbed.

“What was it like?” He asked. “In Rome. What was it like to be cut off from your God?”

“I wasn’t cut off.” Grizzop replied, Wilde’s current position forgotten in his indignation. “She was there, just...” He paused, remembering the sensation. “Far away.”

“And what was that like?” Grizzop tried to lift Wilde’s head from his lap even as he was asking the question. His sharp nails caught in the short strands of Wilde’s hair, where the rough stubble had grown out into soft down. Wilde, if anything, leaned into the sensation.

“Blimey your head is heavy.” Grizzop muttered. Wilde’s only response was to settle himself more comfortably in Grizzop’s lap, and the silence stretched on between them.

“It was lonely.” Grizzop said at last. “I hadn’t been lonely for a very long time.”

“A Paladin’s always got a pal?”

“Watch it.” Grizzop growled, digging just the tip of the arrow into the meat of his shoulder.

“Always do.” Wilde grinned at him, upside down. “So tomorrow we find a factory?”

“Kill the bad guys, burn the factory, save the world.” Grizzop smiled despite himself. “Same old, same old.”

“However do you stand the boredom?” Wilde yawned hugely, then rolled on his side, using Grizzop’s leg as a pillow.

“I’m moving you as soon as you’re asleep.” Grizzop grumbled at him.

“I know.” Wilde settled himself in with unreasonable familiarity. He stopped short of punching Grizzop’s leg into a more comfortable shape, but only just.

“I might stab you with this arrow.”

“No you won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“It wouldn’t be morally righteous.” Wilde smiled, his eyes already closed.

“I can see nothing incompatible between my morals and stabbing you.”

“Yeah you can.” Wilde’s voice was growing slower and softer as he drifted off. Grizzop sighed and left him where he was for now, picking up his whetstone and going back to sharpening his arrows. Wilde was a source of warmth, if nothing else, and Grizzop would definitely move him before the others got up. His eyes scanned the trees, the mountain top, as his hands moved in a practised rhythm and he thought forward to the coming dawn.


End file.
